Deuterono...WHAT?

Day 38: Deuteronomy 21-25

Have you ever wondered why we (as Christians) believe and abide by certain passages of scripture while other passages of scripture are chalked up to being cultural and we therefore don't see them as relevant? For example, the reading for today discusses what happens when a man: marries more than one woman, hangs someone on a pole, needs to kill rebellious children, takes a woman captive, flogs someone in the presence of a judge, has to marry his sister-in-law because his brother dies, wants to find proof of a woman's virginity (I have to admit that I hate the idea of this one), and loans money to people and shouldn't charge interest to someone from the same country while he should charge it to "foreigners".

After reading this list, what do you think of these laws? Don't most of them seem outrageous to you? Outdated, even? They do to me. But why is this the case? Why do we view some laws, particularly in the Old Testament, as being outdated, ancient, and purely connected to Jewish culture, while others within these same passages are viewed as laws for us today? Hard and fast rules we need to follow?

I can only guess at the reason here (and I'm sure there are many, with one being that Jesus changed and extended many of these laws), but it seems to me that the answer has to do with our own current notions of right and wrong. That is, when we view a practice as "right"-eous today, we thus view the biblical practice as outdated and associated with the Israelite culture; however, when we view the practice as sinful today, we view the biblical practice as right (and therefore relevant, appropriate, and current).

For instance, today, I think we can all agree that we view it as wrong to flog, hang, or murder people. As a result, we view the biblical commands related to these "sins" (or practices) as something that was cultural to the Israelites and therefore not relevant to us today. However, when we view a behavior or attitude today as "sinful," we refer to the passages in the Bible (where it is also deemed sinful), and we justify our way of looking at the world through the biblical lens.

But, why isn't everything cultural? How do we decide what's cultural and what's not? I don't know, but I think it's something we should all consider as we decide what we believe and why we believe it.

And, just in case you're still wondering about the kinds of passages that have me thinking about these issues, I leave you with Deuteronomy 25:11:

"If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."

Uh, was this a common problem? Do we need a law for everything?